I’m With You #2
After maybe ten minutes of this, the novelty should have worn off, but it doesn’t.
Up here, with the wind making my nose run and my tailbone bouncing against muscle-armor scales, I feel more like myself than I have in weeks.
There’s nothing to perform for, nothing to prove; just sky and bone and the pulse of three hearts that, for tonight, are tuned to the same frequency.
We sweep the sky in a wide, searching arc, looking for a good place to set down and eat.
Below, the woods are a dark, dense tangle—exactly the place you’d find a dead body or, more likely, something that wants to become a dead body.
Aubrey’s head tilts, and I know from the way his wings flatten that he’s found what he wants.
We spiral down, losing altitude in long, lazy sweeps.
The adrenaline is racing in my veins now, and I have to hold on tight to Aubrey so I don’t bounce off in excitement.
My dragon skims the edge of the tree line, and then drops the last twenty feet in a deadfall that leaves my stomach in my throat.
His claws hit the ground with a muted thud, wings folding in with a snap that echoes through the trees.
The clearing is big enough for two of him, but he only stays in full dragon form long enough for Renard to land, then shifts down to half.
Aubrey is still huge like that, but he’s more man than beast. His forearms are scaled and massive, claws gleaming, but he can speak without it being a boom that will scare things off.
Rennie touches down as lightly as possible and then cracks his neck. He’s humanoid but for his onyx skin and wings, so he can move quietly. “It is cold and dark, ma petite. Stay close, and if you sense anything, speak up. The woods at night are rarely empty.”
Aubrey grins, his teeth a line of dragonish daggers. “Not with us in it, they’re not.”
I slip off Aubrey’s back and nearly ate shit because my legs are numb from the ride. Staggering, I grab for Renard—who is at my side instantly, steadying me with one warm claw. “You should half-shift,” he murmurs. “It will be easier, and you’ll be able to keep up if there is a chase.”
He’s right. I don’t like half-shifting on command—it reminds me too much of my mom and some of the worst parts of my childhood, as she tortured people who disappointed her.
So I do as my gargoyle says, relaxing the human hold to let the bunny rise.
My ears pop out, my nose goes sharp and twitchy, and every color in the world gets about ten percent more intense.
The forest smells like a hundred different animals and my brain immediately files them all by threat level and snack potential.
It gets easier every time. Felix was right from the start about that, and I’m glad for it.
The three of us fan out. Aubrey leads, moving through the brush like a living tank, snapping branches and trampling undergrowth.
Ren takes the right flank, almost invisible when he wants to be and silent as a ghost. I stick to the middle, my feet barely making a sound even in sneakers, with my senses wide open.
Now and then, I catch sight of glowing animal eyes or the flash of a tail in the bracken, but nothing big enough to matter.
Hunting is… weird when you’re part-prey.
The bunny brain wants to run, but the rest of me knows what it’s like to tear and bite and feed.
My body is faster than my thoughts; the minute I see something move—a dark streak low to the ground—I’m gone, ears back and blood singing in my veins.
The woods blur past, all cold air and leaf mold and the slap of my feet against frozen dirt.
The chase is short, and I corner the grimy-looking asshole holding a knife.
I pounce, digging in with teeth and claws and pure animal drive.
When I bite down, the taste is hot and bright and so much better than I remembered.
My mouth floods with it, and for a moment, I don’t think about anything at all except feeding.
Fucking weird, that, but maybe it comes from Lucille? She absolutely ate people when she felt like it, and that’s probably where it came from.
When I’m done, the bunny in me is calm, sated, and weirdly proud.
I feel my muscles hum with energy, so I head back to the original clearing by scent.
Aubrey and Renard are already there. The dragon’s got blood up to his knuckles, which means he found something with a backbone to play with, and Renard’s eyes are a little glassy, the way they get when he feeds.
Both of them turn when I step into the open, and the way they look at me is ridiculous: full-on proud parents at the first-grade play, except I probably have blood on my face.
Renard laughs first, a low, happy rumble that shakes his chest. “Ma petite, you have outdone yourself.”
“You look like you murdered a ketchup packet with your face, Lunchable,” Aubrey says with a grin.
I lift my arm to wipe it off on my sleeve, then frown and push it up so I can use my forearm instead.
Aubrey arches an eyebrow. “What, you don’t want to get Fitz’s hoodie dirty? Since when do you care?”
I grin. “I don’t want to make extra work for Percy. The crew has enough work shadowing me, the laundry is insane, and Fitzy likes this one, so I don’t want it ruined.”
That kills them; I can tell by the way they’re staring at me.
Renard’s expression goes soft, and he quotes, dead serious, “Les petites bontés sont l’architecture d’une bonne ame.*”
Aubrey rolls his eyes so hard I swear I can hear it. “Time to go, snack size, before he composes a sonnet.”
I laugh and wipe the last of the blood on my arm.
The cold hits me harder now, but the glow inside is enough to push it away for a while.
I scramble back onto Aubrey’s shoulders as he shifts full again, and this time, when we lift off, I’m lighter.
Not just in my bones, but in all the places that had been bogged down with fear and worry.
The next flight is easier. We bank south, the woods below us spinning out into a blur, and I dig my hands into dragon scales and whoop into the night.
If this is what being an exiled freak is, I’ll take it over ‘fitting in’ every time.
* Small acts of kindness are the architecture of a good soul.